@ariard banned for 30 days

[pinheadmz]

This report is an explanation of @ariard current 30-day ban from the bitcoin GitHub organization. At this time, that covers both repositories bitcoin/bitcoin and bitcoin/bips. This issue is an appropriate place to discuss ariard's behavior in those repositories, and whether or not 30 days is an appropriate ban time. It is not an appropriate place to discuss moderation in general, consensus changes, conflicts of interest, etc.

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Disruptive comments

Off-topic comments that disrupt technical progress on a pull request or issue:

• (comment deleted by BIPs editor)

  • This comment contains irrelevant personal attacks

    • "could please ask to your f*cking boss to present me public excuses to have instructed one of his attorney in March 2023 in forwarding a completely defaming legal letter ..."

• BIP 54: Consensus Cleanup bitcoin/bips#1800 (comment)

  • This comment has absolutely nothing to do with the consensus cleanup proposal

    • "the disagreement between Alex Morcos / Chaincode and myself..."

  • This comment uses inflammatory language targeting individuals

    • "you’re a rude boy..."

• BIP 54: Consensus Cleanup bitcoin/bips#1800 (comment)

  • This comment is off topic and implies legal threats

    • "However, what is completely illegal has been (a) the establishment of the moderation
      guidelines last year ..."

    • Note that wikipedia has a fantastic policy regarding legal threats

Why 30 days

Because ariard has already been banned for shorter intervals, and continues to disrupt technical progress in the organization with legal threats, personal attacks and off-topic comments.

• policy: enable full-rbf by default bitcoin/bitcoin#30493 (comment)
  • off topic comment, personal attack not relevant to technical discussion
  • resulted in 3 day ban

The longer ban time for recent incidents was also requested by BIPs editors:

#16

Additional disruption

Araird has opened the same pull request multiple times to remove moderation policy and while that is a reasonable proposal (despite its lack of support) these pull requests are getting more disruptive as they contain legal threats and personal attacks.

• Remove MODERATION-GUIDELINES #13
• Remove MODERATION-GUIDELINES (#2) #14

  • "E.g, if I say Matthew Zipkin has only been hired at Chaincode to do PR triage and not for the quality of his technical expertise or contributions to bitcoin-open source and as such his technical public credibility is very very questionable (is anyone can quote a significant technical contribution attributed to Matthew Zipkin ?...). If Matthew Zipkin goes to attack me for diffamation in front of US courts of justice, I would just have to prove it's true and call to dismiss the motion (— by the way that the reason CSW didn’t do diffamation lawsuits towards Hodlnonaut in the US, he would have loose directly)."

• Remove MODERATION-GUIDELINES (#3) #15

It's worth noting that he has exhibited the same pattern in the BOLTs repository:

• Remove the CoC.md lightning/bolts#1241
• Remove the CoC.md (attempt #2) lightning/bolts#1247
• Remove the CoC.md (attempt #3) lightning/bolts#1248

Productive contributions

It's important to note that ariard's recent appropriate comments on controversial issues are not being removed, because they constructively contribute to the technical progress of Bitcoin and do not violate the moderation guidelines policy. The goal of moderation is to improve the environment bitcoin contributors work in, there is no value in censorship:

• BIP-119 OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY #31989
• consensus: Remove checkpoints #31649
• Add NODE_TXRELAY_V2. #30837

GitHub

GitHub's terms of use explicitly delegate community moderation to organization members:

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#c-acceptable-use

You agree that you will not under any circumstances violate our Acceptable Use Policies or Community Guidelines.

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-community-guidelines

Communicate expectations - Maintainers can set community-specific guidelines to help users understand how to interact with their projects, for example, in a repository’s README, CONTRIBUTING file, or dedicated code of conduct. You can find additional information on building communities on the Communities page.

Moderate Comments - Users with write-access privileges for a repository can edit, delete, or hide anyone's comments on commits, pull requests, and issues. Anyone with read access to a repository can view a comment's edit history. Comment authors and people with write access to a repository can also delete sensitive information from a comment's edit history. Moderating your projects can feel like a big task if there is a lot of activity, but you can add collaborators to assist you in managing your community.

Sybil attack

GitHub's terms of use prohibit ban-evasion with the use of multiple accounts:

https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#b-account-terms

...you may not have more than one free Account.

Ariard has violated this rule for the explicit purpose of ban-evasion, and is causing further disruption to the organization as we continue to block all his new accounts:

• https://github.com/ariard
• https://github.com/ariard2
• https://github.com/ariard3
• https://github.com/ariard4
• https://github.com/ariard5
• https://github.com/ariard6

There is also substantial evidence both on github and off that ariard uses this other chain of accounts to attack Bitcoin contributors and disrupt technical progress:

• https://github.com/purpletimez
• https://github.com/purpletimez2
• https://github.com/purpletimez3

I have reported all these accounts to GitHub Support.

Personal note

Despite being personally attacked by ariard in inflammatory comments I am committed to moderating fairly and engaging in open discussion in the proper channels (i.e. a great distance away from technical work). I want to keep this issue open for discussion specifically about banning araird for 30 days. I want to keep remove moderation guidelines open for discussion about moderation in general, and I look forward to understanding ariard's explicit legal concerns about "joint works" and their governance. I also don't mind continued discussion about moderators' conflict of interests and on that note I want to be very clear about this:

I pushed the "ban" button on ariard for all the reasons stated above, without any other external influence.

As a former employee of Chaincode, ariard knows better than most people that there is no oversight or chain-of-command here, and employees such as myself are free to contribute to Bitcoin under their own self-direction, as I have taking these actions as moderator.

TO THE MOON!

Let's keep working on Bitcoin. 🚀

[glozow]

There is no shortage of examples of disruption, spread across several years. I think we owe it to the rest of the contributors not to force them to deal with somebody who repeatedly uses the repository for personal attacks and derails development. Similarly, I don't think moderators should have to spend so much of their time dealing with the same person.

This issue is an appropriate place to discuss ariard's behavior in those repositories, and whether or not 30 days is an appropriate ban time.

If a user responds to moderation/bans with more disruption and legal threats, I think bans should be escalated. For ariard, imo next step should be 6 months or "indefinite or until the user communicates some understanding of why their previous behavior wasn't acceptable, e.g. through an email."

Ariard has violated this rule for the explicit purpose of ban-evasion, and is causing further disruption to the organization as we continue to block all his new accounts:

Imo ban evasion itself should be treated as misbehavior as serious as anything else (i.e. warrants escalation), as it demonstrates a complete rejection of community guidelines.

For people who are actually interested in collaborating with the community, I think bans can be a productive way to handle things. Sometimes people just need to cool down; we've seen others who were moderated/banned and came back with more levelheadedness. I am not convinced ariard is one of those cases based on what he's demonstrated over the last several years. I don't think he should be allowed back without serious evidence that he's changed.

[kanzure]

We should not create an expectation of full writeups in public (or at all); it's not a good precedent. Attackers are asymmetric in this space and it's trivial to swamp ANY "process" you create. Just ban and move on. Otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time. Anyone can contribute to bitcoin projects anywhere on the internet under any identity, or costlessly make new identities. Just as it is costless to make new identities, bans and moderation must be equally (or more) cost free to scale for the project.

[pinheadmz]

@kanzure you might be interested in #4

[kanzure]

@kanzure you might be interested in #4

actually I specifically am not; I have been consistent on this matter too: bitcoin/bitcoin#29507 (comment)

[...] Another issue with the transparency section is that it imposes a bunch of extra work that doesn't scale with denial of service attacks against moderator attention or project resources. At most, surely, maybe a statement that a moderator has made a decision & then move on.

[achow101]

We should not create an expectation of full writeups in public (or at all); it's not a good precedent.

I agree that this is not a good precedent to set, and it's certainly above and beyond the transparency items laid out in the guidelines. But, it is certainly helpful to have the details of why someone was banned written down somewhere. I'll leave it up to the moderator(s) who ban someone to decide how much information they want to provide publicly.

[ariard]

This report is an explanation of @ariard current 30-day ban from the bitcoin GitHub organization. At this time, that covers both repositories bitcoin/bitcoin and bitcoin/bips. This issue is an appropriate place to discuss ariard's behavior in those repositories, and whether or not 30 days is an appropriate ban time. It is not an appropriate place to discuss moderation in general, consensus changes, conflicts of interest, etc.

This is where that whole proceeding of yours is flawed Matthew. You’re taking a ban action which is preventing me to contribute on Bitcoin consensus change, of which you have no say or no legitimacy.

However, you have not been able to answer under which legal ground you’re doing it when I raised the problem of “joint authorship” on the other issue. So somehow, it sounds you’re taking purely arbitrary actions (i.e “power” or “control”) as defined by the judicial ruling of 2023 on what decentralization means for bitcoin. Github electronic passwords are explicitly mentioned in the ruling.

I have reported all these accounts to GitHub Support.

With the assistance of my attorneys, we actually legally reached out to Github over the last months, before to open any PR to remove the moderation guidelines on bitcoin core or the equivalent for Lightning BOLTs. This is in reaction to the episode in last November on the Lightning side.

I pushed the "ban" button on ariard for all the reasons stated above, without any other external influence.

Thanks, if you can publish your work contract with Chaincode. That way it’s a credibility token you’re good faith. Of course, take time to blur or mask any personal info from such document. I’m strictly to respect people’s private life in this space.

I can talk about few times when I was a Chaincode employees have been under external influence. At least the time when we have to comply with NYC employment state law.

[ariard]

There is no shortage of examples of disruption, spread across several years. I think we owe it to the rest of the contributors not to force them to deal with somebody who repeatedly uses the repository for personal attacks and derails development. Similarly, I don't think moderators should have to spend so much of their time dealing with the same person.

Glozow, I respect you a lot. If you can remind for whom I’ve initially wrote that gist about tx-relay) (“Mitigating Tx-Relay Jamming for Time-Sensitive Contract Protocols”) end of 2020. I have a memory doubt.

I think towards you there has been only one episode where I might have hold rude words towards you, namely when you publish the trick to bypass the rule 2 of bip 125 on unconfirmed ancestor. I’m fully aware it was rude words, though at the same time it was a thorny bypass, at least for second-layers.

If a user responds to moderation/bans with more disruption and legal threats, I think bans should be escalated. For ariard, imo next step should be 6 months or "indefinite or until the user communicates some understanding of why their previous behavior wasn't acceptable, e.g. through an email.”

I’ve never threat a bitcoin core maintainer with threats. The only people I’ve explicitly threat to go to talk in front of a court if those moderation circus is not improved have been Alex, Suhas and Jack Jack and they’re all rude boys that can handle that.

There is also Matt that I’ve threatened in private but (a) he’s been the first to do it and (b) when Matt talk with you about legal issues in private over a call, they forgot half of the actual US employment law. Just favoring their biased versions. There has been also the episode with AJ last year, where he over-interpreted my words and I when to over-interpreted its own answer.

That I have respect for AJ, he’s been for in open-source even before bitcoin with debian.

I’ve said the following in private email in date of the last 13 january:

"Be certain, litigating another open source developer is not something I'm pleased to do with the saddening CSW cases of the past few years, neither that I'm deciding to do lightly. By ethics, I'll definitely never do it if the other person is not in measure to defend oneself.”

"This is not at all the situation of Mr. Corallo, who has been acting knowingly and who is perfectly able to legally defend himself."

I’ll bind to that ethical rule with the best effort, though note for the sad awareness, yes in the linux space, maintainers have been among themselves in front of courts for stories about ip license.

I’ll always believe in the virtue of dialogue and patience, but if you’re cancelling someone to lend his perspesctive on an issue and his viewpoint, it’s only making things more inflammatory.

Imo ban evasion itself should be treated as misbehavior as serious as anything else (i.e. warrants escalation), as it demonstrates a complete rejection of community guidelines.

See above, we checked what are the github tos and what is the law can be applied here with the assistance of my attorneys. There is no ban evasion, when the ban is in first place “illegal” or at least done under completely arbitrary rules. I’ve been an effort to be very polite and courteous so far with github folks here, I swear.

For people who are actually interested in collaborating with the community, I think bans can be a productive way to handle things. Sometimes people just need to cool down; we've seen others who were moderated/banned and came back with more levelheadedness. I am not convinced ariard is one of those cases based on what he's demonstrated over the last several years. I don't think he should be allowed back without serious evidence that he's changed.

I’m not going to fully say that cooling down has a benefit sometimes, if not most of the times. Somehow, talking offline with Jon, who is someone I respect a lot what with not benefit. I’ve restrained since yesterday to post not purely technical comment on the consensus cleanup draft PR, as I said so.

In my situation, the personal decision-making is not that simple. Finding from time to time what we called vulnerabilities, sometimes very serious and hot, sometimes “hmmm, it’s a weird technical full-node processing that could be exploited under some tangent”, banning me from repository or any other channel doesn’t facilitate the embargoed work to collaborate on vulnerabilities.

It’s also means if you’re aware about a generic vector of exploitation, and you can comment why something is broken a priori, before stuff is merged that’s most of the time better for everyone. Hopefully, though vulnerabilities handling is always hard shit.

That I do not decide for the time being and until new decision, to share any sensitive security info with Chaincode folks or their affiliates, even if they have the trust of other folks in the community, it’s my choice. One cannot cancel in-person invitation to meeting, I’m fully legit to attend, share defaming words on my backs and then go to expect I’ll forward you flowers or chocolate. Life doesn’t work like that.

Retaliating because you do not trust some people about sec info, and that retaliation taking the form of a repository ban it’s not okay. For the present situation, there are sufficient current maintainers or past maintainers beyond the strict affiliation of Chaincode who’re keeping my trust if I have to share very hot weird bugs about full-nodes.

Finally, for anyone who is inclined to judge another human being, even if it’s very informal about online behavioral guidelines, I can only recommend to read Matthew Hale’s words) from the XVIIth century and that inspired modern judicial ethics. (yeah i know it’s old and a bit out-dated but it’s a good starter to medidate on).

[ariard]

We should not create an expectation of full writeups in public (or at all); it's not a good precedent. Attackers are asymmetric in this space and it's trivial to swamp ANY "process" you create. Just ban and move on.

Kanzure, what do you think to have the writeups being done in public, or stamped in the bitcoin blockchain by principle. That way anyone, indifferently of maintainers, lamba contributors or plebs contributor, can verify a posteriori what did happen.

We’re all in the same symmetric situation w.r.t to the bitcoin blockchain as a beacon for authenticity.

[ariard]

Otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time.

In a decentralized community with contributors all over the world, it’s unclear who is an “impartial party” to say what situation is a waste of everyone’s time or not. Satoshi is gone for the best and the worst... and we poor humans have to find how to do our best in face of disagreement.

[ariard]

Anyone can contribute to bitcoin projects anywhere on the internet under any identity, or costlessly make new identities. Just as it is costless to make new identities, bans and moderation must be equally (or more) cost free to scale for the project.

We only have one set of technical consensus rules for the whole ecosystem of bitcoin full-nodes, i.e bug for bug including for things like CHECKMULTISIG extra argument. One can one test a consensus full-node processing, if one does not have access to the code, including being able to ask questions on the different running versions of full-nodes. This avoid a lot of problems down the road, not only for full-node inter-compatibility but also for use-cases like second-layers.

Let’s remind that the inflation bug was found in 2018 by someone not belonging to the usual set of bitcoin core contributors.

[ariard]

Just as it is costless to make new identities, bans and moderation must be equally (or more) cost free to scale for the project.

I would say yes and no. It’s okay to hide spam e.g when someone is trying to sell you Ripple or Dash. When it’s about contributors who have been around for years, contributing code commits to the software, it’s clearly not okay. I’m among the one who have still a very mixed opinion on the way Gavin was kicked out from its maintenance perms in 2016.

Holding some forms matters as the outcome when you’re treading with other human beings.

[ariard]

[...] Another issue with the transparency section is that it imposes a bunch of extra work that doesn't scale with denial of service attacks against moderator attention or project resources. At most, surely, maybe a statement that a moderator has made a decision & then move on.

I have somehow the exact opposite viewpoint from the FOSS economics perspective. Rules, if any, should be able to stand the test of time, and not call for a quick decision by a moderator. The decision process, if any should build credibility and legitimacy in the moderator decision’s not the other way. What you’re aiming to increase the set of contributors who are constructively contributing to the software or the ecosystem as we progress towards ∞.

Let’s remind that, afaik, someone like Mike Hearn, who has been despised by the bitcoin community during the block size war, was a witness to the CSW case early 2024 that was successful in denying faketoshi’s claims. IIRC from courts transcripts, he testified all his doubt he had about CSW.

[ariard]

I agree that this is not a good precedent to set, and it's certainly above and beyond the transparency items laid out in the guidelines. But, it is certainly helpful to have the details of why someone was banned written down somewhere. I'll leave it up to the moderator(s) who ban someone to decide how much information they want to provide publicly.

I’ll write my own versions of the events that way the community, indifferently of a maintainer, a moderator, a lambda contributor, or a bitcoin pleb can build its own opinion with more objectivity.

I’ll maintain what I said in the other removal issue, that the way the MODERATION.md was instigated is not okay. Only ~13 contributors ACKing with a historical set of ~1200 contributors is not okay. And I’m not sure among who those ~13 contributors who have been informed they have if not right (but probably the right), the legitimacy to say no.

It’s not ethical being 10 or 20 years older than someone, being in a strictly defined hierarchical position and try to steamroll some “guidelines" on someone 10 years younger or more. Even worst, if it’s someone who have purely a software engineering training and who might not be able to understand the implications of its actions.

[ariard]

That’s all (at least for today) - I’ve said my frank opinion in the most polite and courteous fashion I’m able.

[kanzure]

I don't care. You talk about decision processes but there are none. This is bitcoin. Some people work on it, others don't. Some people want to talk with you, others don't, and now you're banned from GitHub posting. I hope you find things beyond this GitHub project to feel compelled by in your life. It's a huge world out there!